Monday, 28 April 2008

I'll be in San Francisco from Sunday, so I expect I'll be picking up my pass then. I expect the rest of the day will be more touristy, unless I get grabbed for a techie discussion!

On Monday, I've arranged a JSR-310 dates/times Expert Group session. As always though, I'm trying not to limit this to just EG members, so if you want to contribute, see the mail on the mailing list.

I'll be kept busy by the JCP during the week too. There is some JCP training on the Monday, plus, for some strange reason, I've been nominated for an award - "JCP participant of the year". Most unexpected!

Finally, of course, I'm giving a JSR-310 technical session with Michael on Thursday at 13:30, with a repeat on Friday at 13:30. The id is TS-6578.

Hope to see some of you there - and if you'd like to meetup and chat about JSR-310, Joda-Time, FCM or any of my blog posts then drop me a line at scolebourne-joda-org.

Saturday, 26 April 2008

I've gathered together a few more thoughts on improving the enhanced for-each loops.
The basic idea is to take this very popular Java 5 feature and provide the missing parts.

Control access

One of the more frustrating parts of the Java 5 for-each loop is when you are 80% through writing a loop, and you discover you need to remove an item, or require the loop index.
At that point, you have to go back and manually change the loop to one of the old formats (in Eclipse at least).
This is a hassle.

Perhaps more importantly is that the older for loops simply aren't as clear in their intentions, aren't very DRY, and are definitely more error-prone.
As a result, I've documented my proposal to improve the for-each loop with control access.
For example, to access the loop index:

As can be seen, the syntax simply involves adding another colon and a 'variable' name.
The 'variable' can be used access loop control and manipulation functions.
Note that the additional colon and 'variable' are of course optional for full backwards compatibility.

The document discusses two strategies for implementing the syntax - either via real Java types or as a language level feature.
Please read the document for more information.

Maps

I have updated my previous document about extending for-each to maps.
The download of the javac implementation remains available from Kijaro.

Summary

It seems increasingly unlikely that there is time for closures to make it into Java 7.
There are also many developers expressing real doubts as to whether the complexity of control invocation is just too much for the venerable Java language.

The alternative is smaller improvements like these two.
They provide an easy to grasp extension to the popular Java 5 for-each loop, that might still be possible to deliver in Java 7.
Opinions welcome, as always.

The altered version of javac can be downloaded, with the normal caveats of 'no warranty' and 'not intended for production'.

Closures

The real question here is whether we should use closures to obtain this functionality, or just code a specific language feature.
Since it is far from certain that closures will appear in Java 7 due to timescale and resourcing questions, maybe we should be considering the alternatives?

Extending for-each loops to cover maps is a simple extension to the Java language that introduces no radically new concepts.
Existing developers should be able to pick up the feature without any difficulty.
In addition, developers that have never been exposed to the feature (but have seen a Java 5 for-each loop) should be able to read the code and grasp the meaning without tuition.

The truth is that sometimes the simple solution is the right one. Perhaps, closures are overkill for many of the uses in Java?
Hopefully this document and prototype will allow people to kick the tyres on implementing this concept as a language feature allowing a fair comparison with closures.

Summary

I've released a document and prototype of For-each loop for Maps, a language change to build on the Java 5 for-each loop.
All feedback welcomed!